Welcoming Alison and Ibrahim to the MsingiAI Team

One of the most exciting moments in any organization’s life is when it moves from an idea in someone’s head to a team of people building it. That’s where we are now.

Last week, two exceptional individuals — Alison Okatch and Ibrahim Fadhili — officially joined MsingiAI. With their arrival, this is no longer just something I’ve been building alone. It’s a team now. A real one. And that changes everything.

Why This Matters

Africa has over 2,000 languages. And almost none of them have meaningful representation in modern AI systems. We talk a lot about “alignment” in the AI world — but how can AI be aligned with our values if it doesn’t understand our voices? Our cultures? Our stories?

That’s why MsingiAI exists. And that’s why the people who join us matter so much. We’re not just building models. We’re building a foundation — msingi — for a future where African languages are first-class citizens in the AI world.

Meet the People Who Just Made MsingiAI Better

Alison Okatch is sharp, grounded, and quietly ambitious. She brings a deep understanding of machine learning and a strong commitment to building tech that empowers.
Ibrahim Fadhili is a fast learner with a deep curiosity about language, culture, and the kind of AI that doesn’t just perform well — but resonates deeply with people.

They’re not here for titles or hype. They’re here to build. To learn. To help create something that’s never existed before.

What We’re Working On

Right now, our focus is simple but powerful:

We’re training Sauti Ya Kenya, our Swahili voice model, on Mozilla’s Common Voice dataset. It’s messy. It’s fun. And the voices are so beautifully varied that we think this version of the dataset might finally help the AI “do its thing.”
We’ve built our first Swahili tokenizer, now open-sourced on GitHub. It’s not perfect, but it works — and we’re making it better every day.
We’ve shifted our training strategy. Instead of jumping straight to 400+ hours of voice data, we’re starting small — just 15 hours for now. The architecture is strong. The scaling will come.

Why We’re Optimistic

There’s no money here. No fancy perks. What we do have is clarity of purpose and the beginnings of a team that believes deeply in what we’re doing.

We're building slow and simple — by design. The right way. We’re not trying to impress anyone right now. We’re trying to lay a foundation that will still matter in 10 years.

Alison and Ibrahim joining is the beginning of that foundation becoming something much more real.

The Future We’re Betting On

We believe Africa will not just be a user of AI. We believe it can be a builder, a shaper, and a leader.

MsingiAI is still small. But that’s how all great things start. With the right people. With the right mission. With the patience to play a long-term game.

So to Alison and Ibrahim: Welcome. You’re not just joining a project — you’re helping define what it becomes.

And to everyone watching: This is just the beginning.

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